Temptation
by Demented Inu
Summary: Sometimes it's hard to deny that in every voice, there is something worth loving. Tsuzuki-centric.


**A/N: I wrote this because I feel incredibly down lately, and this has been eating at my head for months. It's a look at how Tsuzuki sees each of the people fawning over him. Just a project. Leave a comment if you like, please.**

Sometimes he dreamed in black and white.

Like an old movie from the 1920s (Charlie Chaplin always made him laugh harder than he'd ever laughed, until tears traced his face and he looked like he was sobbing his heart out) and just as silent, flickering with static and the picture was sometimes so grainy that he had difficulty seeing it clearly.

And he could scream if he wanted to, and no one would hear him, and sometimes he just liked to sink low and let himself nearly disappear within his own subconscious.

Only nobody would let him. The words fell from his mouth faster than he could trap them there, begging "please please let me fade away, let me fade away like a flower in the winter snow, fade and grey and disappear".

They held him tight in their suffocating embraces, and their kiss felt like a seal.

Hisoka. That was who mattered most, whether in the dream world or in reality. In all his life he had never felt someone come so close to touching the core of his very being. He wanted nothing more than to open up (bloom bright and fresh) but those somber eyes made him shrink away, reminded of why he sins. In his dreams, Hisoka clambered for his flesh like he never did in reality and took his hair in fistful and sobbed into him: "Don't go."

In his dreams, he never went, even though he wanted to.

Tatsumi. A force behind his eyes like the shadows that danced there, and he couldn't deny it no matter how hard he tried. Tatsumi had held him in his hands and cradled him there half-broken, had seen into him and through him complete. Had told him in soft voices that he hated him and everything he did – not directly, but his eyes did all the rest. His hands did all the rest. In his dreams, Tatsumi's fingers pushed him away, but sometimes they held onto him too, brought him close and into that sweet electrifying kiss that made his nerves stand on end. In his dreams, he let him, even though in reality, he would've angrily shoved him away.

And Tatsumi whispered, "Do what makes you happy."

Watari. Lost and forlorn and obvious in his eyes, a connection made that Tsuzuki didn't want to ever break. Their friendship was rocky and teetered on the fact that both of them, no, neither of them would ever be 'normal'. Watari had been the one to open his eyes and help him see that it was okay to be different, even when nobody else thought it was. In his dreams, Watari would braid his hair and the softness of his sobs sounded like his sister's, and as the friendliness between them turned cold, Tsuzuki could feel himself icing over, lonely. In his dreams, Watari asked him in a woman's voice if he was happy and his hair smelled like perfume and his clothes fell in a pool around him, and in those dreams, Tsuzuki said yes.

He could never be sure if he meant it or not when he woke up.

The Count. Older and wiser than Tsuzuki could ever hope to be, luring him in with the false pretenses of desire. Tsuzuki couldn't honestly say that there wasn't some kind of appeal there, to live with the Count in that lonely old Hall of Candles and let himself just be loved for a little while. Their dance was dizzying, the Count's step not quite in time with his own because he always assumed he was leading (no, I'm not going with you and I don't love you and you scare me sometimes) but then the other would spin him around and make him see who was really in charge all along. In his dreams, the Count always reached for him from somewhere foggy and too far to see properly, but he could hear him if he strained, catch the sounds of bad love poetry on the sigh of the wind. "I want you," he said sometimes, and other times he said, "You're only human," and Tsuzuki would turn and run the other way.

And he would shout to himself, "no, no, no."

Muraki. Far too much to talk about, or not talk about, when it came to Muraki. His silver-white angelic appearance and smooth sultry voice still haunted him in his worst nightmares. Tall and intimidating and leaning close to him, too close for comfort, tracing his face and telling him he's worth something. There was no appeal in their fleeting confrontations, only tension and anger and rage burning deep inside of him, and Muraki got under his skin like nobody else ever could. In his dreams, Tsuzuki felt the blade slide under his muscle and tendons until he heard the scrape of metal on bone, and as he bled out, Muraki would be there, leaning close, whispering into his ear that he's a monster and he's at fault, but that he still thinks he's beautiful. Tsuzuki wanted to be beautiful, wanted to be human, more than anything else in the world. And Muraki would let him. Muraki's voice laughed sometimes in these dreams, and clothes were shed, and it was cold and forced and violent when he bruised… And Muraki would say to him, "I love you."

Tsuzuki would wake before he had a chance to reply. Good. He wouldn't know what to say to that anyway.

They all surrounded him and suffocated him in their affections when he let them get too close, and their voices seemed to taunt him because in every one, he found something to like, something to appreciate, and something to want.

And Tsuzuki fell into their arms, wilted and dead like a greyed flower in chilling winter snow.


End file.
